"Why did you not tell me, said I, when I hired you, that all the rocks in the sea would get out of the way of your vessel? This ill-mannered fellow here did not know his duty; he was sleeping I suppose, and has given us a hearty jolt, and I was abusing him for it, till you should chastise him some other way." He shook his head, and said, "Well! you do not believe, but God knows the truth; well now where is the rock? Why he is gone." However, very prudently, he anchored soon afterwards, though we had received no damage.
At night, by an observation of two stars in the meridian, I concluded the latitude of Cape Mahomet to be 27° 54', N. It must be understood of the mountain, or high land, which forms the Cape, not the low point. The ridge of rocks that run along behind Tor, bound that low sandy country, called the Desert of Sin, to the eastward, and end in this Cape, which is the high land observed at sea; but the lower part, or southermost extreme of the Cape, runs about three leagues off from the high land, and is so low, that it cannot be seen from deck above three leagues. It was called, by the ancients, Pharan Promontorium; not because there was a light-house *[1] upon the end of it, (though this may have perhaps been the case, and a very necessary and proper situation it is) but from the Egyptian and Arabic word Farek †[2], which signifies to divide, as being the point, or high land that divides the Gulf of Suez from the Elanitic Gulf.
